Film Marketing Campaigns: The Crazier The Better

Last weekend saw the release of one of the most anticipated films of the year, ‘M3GAN’. If you live for horror movies or even just check your social media every once in a while, you’re likely to have seen Jason Blumhouse’s latest marketing campaign. 

Creepy Dolls

As part of this ingenious campaign, not too dissimilar to that of ‘SMILE’, which was released towards the end of 2022, a number of ‘creepy dolls’ were set loose on New York City, with the main goal of causing chaos and instilling fear into everyone who happened to lay their eyes on them. Okay…not really, but they definitely managed to creep a few people out and catch the eyes of the nation. 

Jimmy Fallon

Quickly spreading word across the nation, the ‘M3GAN’ dolls infiltrated a number of popular television shows, like Jimmy Fallon’s Tonight Show. The dolls even marched onto football fields and performed ‘M3GAN’s signature dance moves in front of thousands of people. 

Commercial Success

The unconventional yet mesmerising campaign along with a groundbreaking trailer saw a box office boom for ‘M3GAN’, earning nearly four times more than the budget for the film on its opening weekend. This is a massive success, considering its competition being James Cameron’s long-awaited ‘Avatar 2’, released only a few weeks before. 


Gen Z

Films like these that are more steered towards that of a younger audience, tend to be very successful with crazier and weirder marketing campaigns. This was exactly the case for ‘M3GAN’, as reports show that 44% of all audiences in the opening weekend were under the age of 24.

Horror marketing history

Horror films have a very rich history in crazy and out-the-box marketing campaigns, with films like ‘The Blair Witch Project’ and ‘The Exorcist’ coming to mind. Some going to more extreme lengths than others, but all with the same idea and goal in mind, which is to increase the awareness of the film. Which is exactly what all of these films have managed to do, more often than not. 

This just goes to show that going that extra bit further and pushing these films out to a wider audience in more creative and wacky ways, can really prove effective in increasing interest and curiosity in a film. 

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